


Scrutiny

by Arlome



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Introspection, POV Second Person, Slight Angst and Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24252082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlome/pseuds/Arlome
Summary: She barges into your life like a bloody freight train.
Relationships: Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson
Comments: 28
Kudos: 81





	Scrutiny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurora_australis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_australis/gifts).



> For my darling Aurora, my beloved partner in crime ( two fics make us partners, right?), may you have the happiest of birthdays in these crazy times! Hope you like it, lady!
> 
> And my undying thanks to my lovely beta [Moreofawaltz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreofawaltz/pseuds/moreofawaltz) who proofread this and made some damn fine suggestions. You're a queen, babe!

She barges into your life like a bloody freight train, bent on the precise destruction of the resolve and iron-clad composure you’ve spent years cultivating to perfection. You’re quite comfortable inside your fortress, barricaded behind massive walls of sullen countenance and severity as you guard your Shakespeare-loving heart with intense jealousy that would put even the most devout of zealots to shame. You’re perfectly fine with being called ‘dull’ and ‘dour’ and other such lovely words that start with ‘d’, as long as you’re left in peace to do your job and do it well. Socialising with your colleagues is not your forte, anyway; you’re not one for after-work drinks at the pub, or for tea parties and soirees with the wife – you’re not much of a husband these days and your dry wit doesn’t fit the idle gossip and mundane conversations that are the brunt of such events.

It all changes when you find her traipsing all over your crime scene in her heels and her dress and that tiny handbag hanging off her wrist. She’s pretty – beautiful, even – and you find yourself struck down by the glint of her eyes and the twist of her lips, by her slim figure and elegant posture, but most of all, _most of all_ , you’re bludgeoned over your head-injury-prone skull by her wit and sharp perception. 

She's fire and 'good times', and everything fun that you forgot to have since 1915, and you feel her laughter bubbling in your chest like a foreign object when she smiles at you with oxblood lips. She’s whisky and cocktails and silly séances and footy matches, and you find yourself drowning in admiration for this impossible woman and her joie de vivre; you find yourself lowering the drawbridge to your fortress’s gates, without even knowing how you got to the levers.

She’s kind and good and loyal, with a heart made of the purest gold, and you count yourself lucky to be considered her friend. Her acute intellect, her competence, fill you with the greatest respect for her character; she’s deep and teasing and acknowledges your many Shakespeare quotes with quirking lips and half-lidded eyes, and when she smiles at you – all radiance and privately shared jokes - something moves within your chest like a jolting milk cart, ready to be overturned at a corner taken too swiftly.

You remember what it's like to lose when that thrice-damned car crashes into a tree, and Collins calls you in even though it's not your department. You hear her name, and the words ‘crash’ and ‘motorcar’, and you die - just a little, just a smidge - at the thought that you are now living in a world without her in it. Your breath stutters in your caved in chest, your stomach hurts, you vomit in the alley behind the station and bring up bile. And even though you find it all unbearable, you get into your car and drive - to pay your last respects, to see her one last time – your fingers trembling on the steering wheel.

She's alive, of course, but you're already damaged. She'll claim you're running scared, that you can't handle a bit of a fright - but you're no coward. You’ve seen death and destruction and walking fire cut through a line of troops like a hot knife through lard; there’s very little that can terrify you. She’s wrong, and that’s almost a first, and you very nearly wish to show her the error of her assumptions, but retreat is more judicious than your pride.

You step away to guard your heart. You step away to save yourself. You step away because it is the prudent thing to do. You step away because you can’t survive unbearable another time; you can’t keep vomiting in alleyways and driving your motorcar in a shaking haze.

You step away, but it's futile, it's too late. As you drink yourself to sleep, you realise just how late it really is. Your heart's been ambushed, your will's been stormed, your guarded fortress with its massive dour walls has been taken hostage. You're irrevocably in love with her – irreversibly, desperately, fervently - you're a dead man walking. There's really nothing more to be done for you. You’re gone, gone, _gone_.

You try to distance yourself for a week or two – but it’s no good. She gets under your skin like no other, spreads roots in your bloodstream and blossoms in your chest like a goddamn jacaranda tree. You find yourself pulled back into her orbit, moored to her brilliance like a rocking boat seeking shelter; there’s no escaping her, there never was. You surrender to your fate happily.

You dance around each other but you never meet until the very moment that you do, on the dance floor of a rundown hotel to the tunes of a contemporary melody you find quite pleasing. The waltz is a serious dance, but you are a serious man, and the way you hold her in your arms, slow and close and true, is rather serious, as well.

Her father is a goddamn nuisance, more trouble than he’s worth, but her resolve to save the man and his marriage only strengthens your love for her. You kiss her on that airfield like a dying man, and the way she breathes against your mouth as you pull away makes you dizzy with desire to continue this dance wherever she chooses.

You follow her, she follows you, it’s not without its upheavals, but in the end, you waltz each other out of reason and straight into bed, and it’s slow and close and true. She’s in your arms, and in your heart, and in your blood and your veins; you breathe her in and breathe her out as she lives and dies in your embrace, crying out and trembling, pressing ever closer to your skin. And in the darkness that follows, when the sweat cools down and the breath evens, she kisses your jaw and whispers her love to the pulse in your neck.

She barges into your life like a bloody freight train, bent on the precise destruction of the resolve and iron-clad composure you’ve spent years cultivating to perfection.

But you won’t have it any other way.


End file.
